Writer, comedian, actor Mike Albo joins host Ophira Eisenberg on Parenting is a Joke for a conversation about becoming a sperm donor for two close friends and finding himself in a version of parenthood he never expected. Albo traces the decision back to a deeper question—whether, as a gay man who came of age during the AIDS crisis, he believed he deserved the kind of full family life that once felt out of reach. What follows is both thoughtful and absurd: months of fertility clinic visits in Murray Hill, navigating the “Goldilocks” timing of sperm donation, getting performance reviews on his sperm motility from a stern Eastern European technician, and discovering that even sperm can apparently show up hungover. The discussion moves from the legal realities of donor agreements to the emotional nuances of being a child’s biological father without being a traditional parent, including why he avoids the word “dad,” how his role has evolved as his daughter has grown older, and why preserving his artistic life felt important both for himself and for her. Along the way, Albo and Eisenberg compare notes on horror movies, practical effects, creative identity, and the many ways families get built outside conventional scripts, all while reflecting on what children understand, what they need confirmed, and how relationships take shape over time. The episode ends with one of Albo’s favorite stories: his daughter, raised by two mothers and a gay sperm donor, casually asking, “Is Mike gay?”

📍June Shows are in Las Vegas, Nantucket, MA, New Haven, CT and NYC

Follow Mike Albo : https://www.instagram.com/albomike

Check out his writing and work: https://www.mikealbo.net/

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

Check out my NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” streaming right now exclusively on Veeps https://veeps.com/ophiraeisenberg

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jenny Hagel returns to Parenting Is a Joke to talk about the strange moral gray zones of raising decent kids while also living in the real world, from teaching a 12-year-old when swearing is funny versus when it turns aggressive, to bribing a five-year-old with 23 M&Ms to say “gracias” in Puerto Rico. Jenny explains how growing up in a strict etiquette-focused household shaped the way she now parents with more nuance, including why she refused to tell her son “we don’t use bad words” when there are already countless clips of her cursing online as a comedy writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers. Ophira and Jenny compare notes on raising boys in New York City, surviving messy apartments, losing keys for entire decades, and trying to create systems that stop family life from turning into chaos, leading to an unexpectedly passionate discussion about handwritten lists, highlighters, key hooks, labeled electronics baskets, and the packing spreadsheet Jenny has used for more than ten years. The conversation also circles around the emotional side of parenting advice — the judgment parents feel from each other, the pressure to raise thoughtful boys, and the fear of accidentally sending an incompetent future boyfriend into society.

📍June Shows are in Las Vegas, Nantucket, MA, New Haven, CT and NYC

Follow Jenny Hagel: https://www.instagram.com/jennyhagel

By her book now! https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Advice-No-One-Asked-For/Jenny-Hagel/9781668079614

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

Check out my NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” streaming right now exclusively on Veeps https://veeps.com/ophiraeisenberg

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jenny Hagel joins Ophira Eisenberg to talk about parenting through big feelings, awkward questions, creative careers, and the strange emotional math of raising boys while working in comedy. Jenny shares how her now-12-year-old son transformed from a tiny Brooklyn tornado she once carried out of donut shops “like a sack of potatoes” into a “fun, chill roommate,” and explains how one preschool meltdown led to the line “my mad is too big for my body,” which completely changed the way she thought about tantrums and emotional regulation. The conversation moves from Mad Libs ruined by the phrase “diarrhea juice” to surprisingly thoughtful discussions about kids’ emotional language, including Jenny’s son describing a crush as “a string” connecting two hearts. Ophira and Jenny also compare notes on parenting boys with huge emotions, the pressure put on working mothers, and the exhausting flood of parenting advice from strangers who assume every family has the same structure and flexibility. Jenny talks about building her live comedy show Advice Nobody Asked For during the writers strike, where audience members anonymously submit questions into buckets labeled “family,” “love,” and “job,” before a real therapist comes onstage to grade the advice — including the time Jenny recommended secretly vaccinating a relative’s baby while babysitting. Along the way they talk about single parenting, Late Night with Seth Meyers, queer parenting, American work culture, and therapy as an emotional toolbox.

📍June Shows are in Las Vegas, Nantucket, MA, New Haven, CT and NYC

Follow Jenny Hagel: https://www.instagram.com/jennyhagel

By her book now! https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Advice-No-One-Asked-For/Jenny-Hagel/9781668079614

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

Check out my NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” streaming right now exclusively on Veeps https://veeps.com/ophiraeisenberg

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When comedian and writer Megan Gailey joins Parenting Is a Joke, she and Ophira compare notes on raising kids while working as touring stand-ups, including the strange reality that dad comics are always available for podcasts while moms are constantly juggling childcare. Megan talks about performing stand-up deep into her pregnancy and loving the instant tension her giant belly created onstage, especially when she opened with “I’m eight months sober.” She shares stories about returning to comedy three weeks postpartum to preserve a sense of identity beyond “just being udders,” dealing with brutal online comments about her body only months after giving birth, and figuring out whether leaving home for road gigs feels worthwhile depending on the crowds, money, and homesickness. The episode also gets into bizarre parenting threats — including fake calls from Santa and a pumpkin-patch lifetime ban — plus Megan’s sports-filled upbringing as the first girl born on her dad’s side in 62 years. Between conversations about postpartum creativity, internet criticism, comedy careers, and raising a toddler obsessed with Shohei Ohtani jerseys, the episode ends with Megan describing her Pacers-loving father’s furious reaction to her son wearing a Michael Jordan Bulls jersey for school picture day: “bullshit.”

📍May Shows are in The Netherlands: The Hague, Nijmegen, Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, Scarsdale, NY, Guilford, CT

Follow Megan Gailey: https://www.instagram.com/bettermegangailey

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

Check out my NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” streaming right now exclusively on Veeps https://veeps.com/ophiraeisenberg

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg talks with Christine Walters—comedian, former TV development executive, and creator of Three Day Champion—about building a creative life that moves between producing, performing, and parenting a now 17-year-old son on the brink of college, while still feeling the daily pull of waiting up for him at night and resisting the urge to track his every move. Walters explains how Three Day Champion grew out of watching Jeopardy! with her family and becoming obsessed with contestants’ awkward personal anecdotes, leading her to design a live storytelling format where comedians must deliver three distinct personal stories under pressure, revealing not just their material but their personality arc, all judged by rotating celebrity guests with their own criteria. She shares how her background developing shows for networks like Comedy Central and Nickelodeon shaped her instinct for structure, including her earlier parenting sketch series Other Mothered, which exaggerated the quiet competitiveness and judgment between moms—like escalating a child’s science fair project from cotton-ball clouds to nuclear fusion—while also reflecting her own experiences being called out by strangers, including a Park Slope drive-by critique of her baby’s exposed legs in a carrier that sent her into a spiral of self-doubt.

📍May Shows are in The Netherlands: The Hague, Nijmegen, Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, Scarsdale, NY

Follow Christine Walters / Thee Day Champion: https://www.instagram.com/threedaychampion

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th!

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg opens with a very real parenting milestone—her 10-year-old son requesting “the talk”, leading to a blunt, anatomy-first explanation that immediately kills the mystique of sex. That mix of parenting improvisation and comic timing carries into her conversation with Christine Walters, a comedian, writer, and former development executive whose career spans shows like Full Frontal with Samantha Bee and The Chris Gethard Show, and who now runs the live storytelling competition podcast Three Day Champion. Walters talks about building a creative life from both sides of the industry—pitching shows, shaping other people’s stories, and then stepping back onstage herself—while balancing the logistical and emotional demands of parenting. The two get specific about what it means to produce creative work under time constraints, how live storytelling changes when your brain is split between childcare and deadlines, and why Walters structured Three Day Champion as a recurring, competitive format that forces comedians to sharpen personal stories into tight, high-stakes sets.

📍May Shows are in The Netherlands: The Hague, Nijmegen, Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, Scarsdale, NY

Follow Christine Walters / Thee Day Champion: https://www.instagram.com/threedaychampion

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th!

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Corey Ryan Forrester talks about recalibrating a 22-year stand-up career around raising his almost three-year-old son, after years of touring 45 weeks a year led to panic attacks, canceled shows, and a long-overdue start in therapy before becoming a parent. He explains how COVID-era podcasting, Substack writing, and an unexpected book deal from HarperCollins created a financial cushion that let him stay home for his son’s first year, and why he still resists returning to full-time road work despite loving stand-up, calling live shows “the result of the work” and travel the real cost. The conversation moves through the physical and emotional crash that follows weekends on stage, the strange relief of having a kid who will lie beside him for hours watching all four Toy Story films in a row when he’s depleted, and the way parenting heightens everything from crying at commercials to worrying about how your choices look to other parents. Forrester also reflects on being raised by a deeply private father who never showed emotion—yet shaped his values around loyalty and caring for family—and shares how that legacy now shows up in small, repeated rituals with his own child, like reminding him to thank his mom and modeling daily check-ins with his own mother. The episode weaves together comedy, storytelling, and the logistics of creative work with a young kid, landing on a vivid origin story of how hearing a Tim Wilson CD make his grieving father laugh nonstop on a long drive to Florida clarified, once and for all, what comedy could do.

📍May Shows are in The Netherlands: The Hague, Nijmegen, Boston, Martha’s Vineyard, Scarsdale, NY

Follow Corey Ryan Forrester: https://www.instagram.com/coreyrforrester

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th!

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this episode of Parenting Is a Joke, Ophira Eisenberg talks with comedian and podcaster Corey Ryan Forrester about raising a three-year-old in Chickamauga, Georgia while maintaining a demanding creative life built on touring, writing, and multiple podcasts. Corey explains how compressing four podcast recordings into a single day is the only way he can fully celebrate his son's birthday—complete with a carefully planned Build-A-Bear outing inspired by a deeply personal story about recording a message for his special-needs niece, who replayed it so often she wore the button out. The conversation moves between parenting logistics and bigger questions about values, as Corey reflects on choosing to raise his child in the same conservative Southern town where he grew up, resisting pressure to leave and arguing that becoming a parent actually intensified his progressive views rather than softening them. He shares the five-year fertility struggle he and his wife went through, his firm decision to be “one and done” at 38 after years on the road doing stand-up, and the physical reality of trying to keep up with a toddler while maintaining a comedy career. Throughout, the two compare notes on only-child dynamics, chosen family, and the subtle calculations creative parents make about what parts of their public voice might eventually affect their kids socially. The episode balances storytelling about career, community, and parenting identity, landing on the small, vivid details that define daily life—like a three-year-old’s birthday plan built around Build-A-Bear, cousins two doors down, and a dad trying to schedule his entire workweek around one cold March day.

📍April Shows are in The Netherlands: Amsterdam, Amstelveen, The Hague, Gronigen, and Nijmegen

Follow Corey Ryan Forrester: https://www.instagram.com/coreyrforrester

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th!

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this follow-up Parenting Is a Joke episode, Ophira Eisenberg and comedian Ahri Findling zero in on the strange overlap between parenting, comedy, and creative identity, starting with Findling’s Instagram bits that splice mundane parenting tasks—like folding laundry—with explosive movie quotes that suddenly feel accurate once you have kids. Their conversation moves through watching childhood films with a new lens, as Ophira revisits E.T. and can only see the overwhelmed single mom feeding her kids junk and leaving a four-year-old home alone, while Findling reinterprets The Parent Trap as a borderline criminal act of separating twins. From there, Findling articulates his comedic approach—mining the small, uncomfortable truths of marriage and parenting, like imagining himself at his wife’s casket both professing love and quietly panicking about not knowing where anything is—and connects it to a broader philosophy that nothing in family life is unique, which becomes oddly comforting for parents juggling creative careers. They get specific about the logistics of stand-up life with young kids, including missing bedtimes, reframing gigs as “work” (a tip from Chris Gethard), and the guilt of being physically absent but creatively dependent on those experiences, alongside moments like Findling’s daughter hiding his shoes to stop him from leaving for a show. The episode also captures the granular negotiations of parenting style—whether to allow swearing at home, how to handle kids absorbing language from Brooklyn streets or Mormon neighbors upstairs, and the constant resetting required when a child abruptly rejects their favorite food or rewrites the rules overnight. Throughout, both comics return to the idea that parenting is improvisational and deeply humbling, whether you’re observing your kid from afar at the park realizing they’re becoming their own person or trying to stay consistent in a job that requires leaving the house at bedtime, all while remembering Findling’s rule that some days the best strategy is simply to think like a goldfish when your kid suddenly insists they’ve never liked chicken nuggets in their life.

Follow Ahri Findling: https://www.instagram.com/theycallmeahri

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th!

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ophira Eisenberg opens this Parenting Is a Joke episode with a vivid, slightly unhinged comparison between riding Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure at Universal and the physical intensity of having her membranes stripped hours before going into labor, setting the tone for a conversation with comedian Ahri Findling that toggles between bodily reality, parenting anxiety, and the strange logic of creative life. Findling, a dad of a six-year-old and a toddler, gets specific about the social ecosystem of elementary school fundraisers—where comics donate their time while quietly wondering why parents don’t just hand over $100 and skip the two-drink minimum—and the unexpected hierarchy created by a fellow parent behind Baked by Melissa. The conversation sharpens around parenting as emotional inheritance: Findling traces his instinct to be an “empath dad” back to his own father while also confronting how that sensitivity collides with raising a daughter who mirrors his anxious tendencies, including a painful playground moment where she interprets two friends arriving together as exclusion. Both comics compare notes on bullying—Findling’s experience being severe enough that a hospital visit during his mother’s ovarian cancer treatment became the perspective shift that helped him disengage—and how that history now complicates decisions about when to step in versus let kids build resilience. They land on the uneasy truth that many parenting “truths” (like recognizing your baby in a crowd) feel more like propaganda, while also admitting to their own quiet judgments of other parents, especially the late-night subway kids who “should be in bed.” Threaded throughout is the tension of raising kids while pursuing comedy careers that still get mistaken for hobbies, and the low-grade panic of wondering if your child’s social milestones—or lack of sleepovers—mean something larger, until Findling reframes it with a kind of reluctant zen: maybe your kid just isn’t ready yet, a thought that lingers alongside the image of Ophira gripping those roller coaster handlebars, trying to convince herself to let go.

Follow Ahri Findling: https://www.instagram.com/theycallmeahri

See Ophira LIVE: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/events/

And stay tuned to see her NEW Comedy Special “I Used to Be Nicer” coming out exclusively on Veeps on May 15th!

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss O thing: https://www.ophiraeisenberg.com/sign-up

Follow PIAJ: 

https://www.instagram.com/parentingisajoke/

https://parentingisajoke.substack.com/

Follow Ophira:

https://www.instagram.com/ophirae/

https://www.facebook.com/OphiraEisenberg/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ophiranyc

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices